Miles, Amanda, Nathan - Saturday afternoon
Nov. 6th, 2004 05:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsWhile everyone else is dealing with the casualties, Amanda takes care of Miles. Nates drops in and there is much reassurance that people are not going anywhere.
Every one was busy with Alison, and she couldn't help there. But there was one person she could help. Amanda let herself into the room where Miles was lying in one of the medlab beds. They'd had to sedate him, he'd been so hysterical about what had happened, and the burst eardrums had meant he wasn't able to hear the lame reassurances that Alison would be okay. Calling up the werelight as she came in, Amanda's heart twisted as she saw the small boy, face puffy and swollen from crying, scraped and bruised from the handling he'd received, the fretful way he tossed and turned, even under the calming influence of the drugs.
"Hey," she said loudly, sending George ahead of her to bounce around Mile's head to announce her presence without scaring the boy. When he turned listlessly to look at her, she came forward, touching his shoulder gently. "I've come to help," she said, then remembered he couldn't hear her. ~Help. OK?~ she signed clumsily, having learned some of the language from having classes with Artie.
Miles nodded without much enthusiasm, and Amanda's heart did another of those horrible twisty things. Laying her hands gently over his ears, she called up the healing spell, taking care to let the energies run as carefully as she could so she wouldn't hurt him. The glow filled the dim room, and it was hard not to feel the emotional pain he was feeling through the connection. Fear, abandonment, worry, more fear… She took it all on board as she healed the physical injuries, knowing the emotional ones would take longer and more wiser heads than hers. At last she had done all she could, and she pulled her hands back. "Hey," she said again, knowing he could hear her now.
"Where's Mama?" he asked, lip trembling. George seemed to sense his distress, and bounced in an intended comforting manner around him, nearly touching his face.
"She's bein' looked after, squirt," Amanda told him as she sat on the bed with a small, weary sigh. Fine spell control took _effort_. "But she'll be fine. Yer just gunna have t' be brave for a little while, like you were in Asgard. Remember?"
Miles tried to nod, but it was all too much, and the tears started again. Before Amanda could move, she had her arms full of small traumatised boy, sobbing as if his heart was breaking. Which, in a way, it was.
Holding him tightly, rocking him slightly, Amanda tried to find the right words to say. "She's strong, squirt. Strong as dragons… remember her coming for you in Asgard? Remember how hard she fought? She'll beat this, I know she will, and she'll be back with you before you know it. We'll do everythin' we can, you know we will."
"But the bad man hurt her so much!" Miles managed to hiccough. "Miles saw him!"
"An' yer've seen other people get hurt here too, but they always get better, don't they?" Amanda shifted more fully onto the bed as Miles squirmed closer onto her lap. "The docs'll fix her up, good as new."
"And 'Manda? 'Manda has the spell that fixes people… 'Manda will fix Mama like she fixed Miles?" With his head buried against her shoulder, it was a little difficult to hear him, but Amanda had known the question would come.
"As much as I can, Miles." She rubbed his back soothingly, in a gesture she'd never felt herself but which came naturally, as breathing. "Everyone'll do everythin' they can, I promise."
"Miles is scared," sobbed the boy. "Miles is scared Mama will go away and leave, like everything will go away."
"Oh, no, Miles, no…" Of course that would be it… Alison symbolised everything in this new life of his. "She will never leave you. Ever. None of us will leave you, squirt, trust me on that one. Yer've got so many people who love you, they'll never let anythin' happen…" Her shoulder was getting soggy with the tears and snot and she didn't care, just held onto him and rocked him and kept up the mantra. ""We won't let anythin' happen, Miles, we won't…"
Eventually he calmed down. Or wore himself out. The sob tapered off, any way, even if the clinging didn't. In the end Amanda curled up around him on the bed, humming a Basque lullaby she'd picked up from Manuel, and he drifted off to sleep, still shaking occasionally with residual sobs. About an hour later, when Nathan came to check on Miles, he found both of them fast asleep, the werelight hovering protectively above them.
Nathan lingered in the doorway, blinking at the sight of Amanda and Miles curled up on the bed together. His vision was blurring every so often and the less said about the headache, the better, but thanks to the pills Moira had shoved at him after a very rushed examination, he was at least functioning. There were probably any number of things he should be doing since he was still on his feet, but...
The werelight buzzed at him briefly, but then stopped, as if it recognized him and saw no further need to be protective. Moving carefully, Nathan went over and sat down in the chair beside the bed, a sigh escaping him.
Amanda woke at the sigh, and the movement - she always was a light sleeper. Trying to uncurl herself from Miles without waking him, she gave him a worried look. "You okay?" she asked in a low voice.
The exhaustion, both emotional and physical, combined with the sedatives he had been given earlier accounted for Miles not waking up just yet. He stirred in his sleep and curled up that much more as he settled down again.
"I'll live," Nathan said, his voice just as low and considerably more hoarse. He offered her a ghost of a smile, but then his eyes rested on Miles and he sighed again, more softly. "Poor little kid..."
Amanda looked down as Miles stirred, and stopped moving herself. "He was in a right state," she said softly. "I healed the physical stuff, but he's scared 'bout Alison. He thinks he's gunna lose her, an' all the rest of it." She gave Nathan a look that plainly asked him to reassure her she'd been right to say it wouldn't happen.
Nathan's eyes unfocused again as he listened in on the link. He didn't understand half of what was going through Moira's mind at the moment - the problems she was wrestling with were considerably beyond his limited knowledge of mutations and all the different ways they could go wrong - but the tone, the tone was still worrying. "Someone'll have to stay with him," he murmured, slumping a little in the chair as he rubbed at his temples. "~To keep him focused on the here and now,~" he went on, unconsciously switching to Askani. "~Not what might happen.~"
"~And not the past,~" Amanda added in the same language, reaching out as best she could without disturbing Miles to lightly touch his temple. The flare of a healing spell joined the greenish glow of the werelight. "~When everything seems like a wonderful dream, the greatest fear is waking up,~" she said a little sadly, pulling her hand away once she'd taken the worst of the pain - Nathan's powers-induced headaches tended to be more than she could heal completely.
Nathan took a deep breath as the pain dulled to a much more tolerable level. "~Thank you,~" he murmured, and then tried to smile again. "In the unlikely event you ever join the team, kiddo, I think we should call you Advil."
Amanda laughed out loud at that. "Somehow I don't think that one would inspire fear in yer average supervillain," she told him, still snickering, before realising that she'd probably woken Miles up with that.
Unmoving, Miles was indeed staring up at the both of them, switching slowly from one to the other as though making sure they were really there. One fingertip pushed lightly against Amanda's arm - yes, there. He couldn't exactly check with Nathan though because going too close to him was still dangerous and now that he was waking up a bit more, Miles thought that maybe they would think it was silly that he'd need to make sure. Just in case. They were calm and Amanda had laughed - which meant no bad news. Or so he hoped.
Nathan smiled gently at the little boy. "Hey," he said softly. "We're both here, Miles. No one's going to leave you alone." His smile grew just a little. "If Dr. Maddie wouldn't scowl at me, I'd have someone bring Bella down here to stay with you, too. Maybe a little later?"
"Bella is nice." And it would be nice to hear her cooing at him, which she did sometimes while falling asleep on his pillow when he took care of her for Nathan and Moira. "Someone will have to bring Dr. Maddie waffles," Miles found himself saying, throat tightening fast. "Mama won't-" He stopped and curled up against Amanda, not finishing the sentence.
"We'll look after Dr. Maddie and Dr. Moira, and they'll look after your mother," Nathan said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "That's the way things work around here, Miles. When there's trouble, we look after each other."
Amanda tightened the hug she was already giving him, reassuring him with sheer presence. "Just for a little while," she murmured. "'Til Alison gets better. 'Cause she will get better. The docs here can fix anythin', an' that's somethin', from me."
A small nod though Miles didn't answer that - the look on his face said more clearly than anything that he knew some things couldn't be fixed, no matter how badly you wished they could be. "Miles is scared." He remembered only too well what it had been like in Asgard, being separated from Alison for so long and not knowing if he'd see her again. Amanda had promised that things would get better back then though, and she'd been right.
Nathan took a deep breath and then reached out, over Amanda - and let his hand rest on Miles' small shoulder. The agitated thoughts battering against his mental shields went quiet, and Nathan smiled very faintly at the surprised look he got from the little boy. "It's okay to be scared," he murmured. "We're here. Not going anywhere."
Resting her chin gently on Miles' head, Amanda started humming the lullaby again as she rubbed his back. 'Safe,' her whole demeanour projected at him. 'You're safe and we're not going anywhere.'
He was still tired and scared and it didn't take much for him to slip back into a light doze, stirring restlessly now and then in his sleep.
Nathan leaned back, his eyes stinging suddenly as he remembered what Alison had asked him and Moira a few weeks ago. He closed his eyes for a moment, running over a meditative pattern in his mind until all that was left was calm. When he opened them, Miles was already starting to relax against Amanda again. Nathan settled himself more comfortably in the chair. Here for the duration, he thought.
Every one was busy with Alison, and she couldn't help there. But there was one person she could help. Amanda let herself into the room where Miles was lying in one of the medlab beds. They'd had to sedate him, he'd been so hysterical about what had happened, and the burst eardrums had meant he wasn't able to hear the lame reassurances that Alison would be okay. Calling up the werelight as she came in, Amanda's heart twisted as she saw the small boy, face puffy and swollen from crying, scraped and bruised from the handling he'd received, the fretful way he tossed and turned, even under the calming influence of the drugs.
"Hey," she said loudly, sending George ahead of her to bounce around Mile's head to announce her presence without scaring the boy. When he turned listlessly to look at her, she came forward, touching his shoulder gently. "I've come to help," she said, then remembered he couldn't hear her. ~Help. OK?~ she signed clumsily, having learned some of the language from having classes with Artie.
Miles nodded without much enthusiasm, and Amanda's heart did another of those horrible twisty things. Laying her hands gently over his ears, she called up the healing spell, taking care to let the energies run as carefully as she could so she wouldn't hurt him. The glow filled the dim room, and it was hard not to feel the emotional pain he was feeling through the connection. Fear, abandonment, worry, more fear… She took it all on board as she healed the physical injuries, knowing the emotional ones would take longer and more wiser heads than hers. At last she had done all she could, and she pulled her hands back. "Hey," she said again, knowing he could hear her now.
"Where's Mama?" he asked, lip trembling. George seemed to sense his distress, and bounced in an intended comforting manner around him, nearly touching his face.
"She's bein' looked after, squirt," Amanda told him as she sat on the bed with a small, weary sigh. Fine spell control took _effort_. "But she'll be fine. Yer just gunna have t' be brave for a little while, like you were in Asgard. Remember?"
Miles tried to nod, but it was all too much, and the tears started again. Before Amanda could move, she had her arms full of small traumatised boy, sobbing as if his heart was breaking. Which, in a way, it was.
Holding him tightly, rocking him slightly, Amanda tried to find the right words to say. "She's strong, squirt. Strong as dragons… remember her coming for you in Asgard? Remember how hard she fought? She'll beat this, I know she will, and she'll be back with you before you know it. We'll do everythin' we can, you know we will."
"But the bad man hurt her so much!" Miles managed to hiccough. "Miles saw him!"
"An' yer've seen other people get hurt here too, but they always get better, don't they?" Amanda shifted more fully onto the bed as Miles squirmed closer onto her lap. "The docs'll fix her up, good as new."
"And 'Manda? 'Manda has the spell that fixes people… 'Manda will fix Mama like she fixed Miles?" With his head buried against her shoulder, it was a little difficult to hear him, but Amanda had known the question would come.
"As much as I can, Miles." She rubbed his back soothingly, in a gesture she'd never felt herself but which came naturally, as breathing. "Everyone'll do everythin' they can, I promise."
"Miles is scared," sobbed the boy. "Miles is scared Mama will go away and leave, like everything will go away."
"Oh, no, Miles, no…" Of course that would be it… Alison symbolised everything in this new life of his. "She will never leave you. Ever. None of us will leave you, squirt, trust me on that one. Yer've got so many people who love you, they'll never let anythin' happen…" Her shoulder was getting soggy with the tears and snot and she didn't care, just held onto him and rocked him and kept up the mantra. ""We won't let anythin' happen, Miles, we won't…"
Eventually he calmed down. Or wore himself out. The sob tapered off, any way, even if the clinging didn't. In the end Amanda curled up around him on the bed, humming a Basque lullaby she'd picked up from Manuel, and he drifted off to sleep, still shaking occasionally with residual sobs. About an hour later, when Nathan came to check on Miles, he found both of them fast asleep, the werelight hovering protectively above them.
Nathan lingered in the doorway, blinking at the sight of Amanda and Miles curled up on the bed together. His vision was blurring every so often and the less said about the headache, the better, but thanks to the pills Moira had shoved at him after a very rushed examination, he was at least functioning. There were probably any number of things he should be doing since he was still on his feet, but...
The werelight buzzed at him briefly, but then stopped, as if it recognized him and saw no further need to be protective. Moving carefully, Nathan went over and sat down in the chair beside the bed, a sigh escaping him.
Amanda woke at the sigh, and the movement - she always was a light sleeper. Trying to uncurl herself from Miles without waking him, she gave him a worried look. "You okay?" she asked in a low voice.
The exhaustion, both emotional and physical, combined with the sedatives he had been given earlier accounted for Miles not waking up just yet. He stirred in his sleep and curled up that much more as he settled down again.
"I'll live," Nathan said, his voice just as low and considerably more hoarse. He offered her a ghost of a smile, but then his eyes rested on Miles and he sighed again, more softly. "Poor little kid..."
Amanda looked down as Miles stirred, and stopped moving herself. "He was in a right state," she said softly. "I healed the physical stuff, but he's scared 'bout Alison. He thinks he's gunna lose her, an' all the rest of it." She gave Nathan a look that plainly asked him to reassure her she'd been right to say it wouldn't happen.
Nathan's eyes unfocused again as he listened in on the link. He didn't understand half of what was going through Moira's mind at the moment - the problems she was wrestling with were considerably beyond his limited knowledge of mutations and all the different ways they could go wrong - but the tone, the tone was still worrying. "Someone'll have to stay with him," he murmured, slumping a little in the chair as he rubbed at his temples. "~To keep him focused on the here and now,~" he went on, unconsciously switching to Askani. "~Not what might happen.~"
"~And not the past,~" Amanda added in the same language, reaching out as best she could without disturbing Miles to lightly touch his temple. The flare of a healing spell joined the greenish glow of the werelight. "~When everything seems like a wonderful dream, the greatest fear is waking up,~" she said a little sadly, pulling her hand away once she'd taken the worst of the pain - Nathan's powers-induced headaches tended to be more than she could heal completely.
Nathan took a deep breath as the pain dulled to a much more tolerable level. "~Thank you,~" he murmured, and then tried to smile again. "In the unlikely event you ever join the team, kiddo, I think we should call you Advil."
Amanda laughed out loud at that. "Somehow I don't think that one would inspire fear in yer average supervillain," she told him, still snickering, before realising that she'd probably woken Miles up with that.
Unmoving, Miles was indeed staring up at the both of them, switching slowly from one to the other as though making sure they were really there. One fingertip pushed lightly against Amanda's arm - yes, there. He couldn't exactly check with Nathan though because going too close to him was still dangerous and now that he was waking up a bit more, Miles thought that maybe they would think it was silly that he'd need to make sure. Just in case. They were calm and Amanda had laughed - which meant no bad news. Or so he hoped.
Nathan smiled gently at the little boy. "Hey," he said softly. "We're both here, Miles. No one's going to leave you alone." His smile grew just a little. "If Dr. Maddie wouldn't scowl at me, I'd have someone bring Bella down here to stay with you, too. Maybe a little later?"
"Bella is nice." And it would be nice to hear her cooing at him, which she did sometimes while falling asleep on his pillow when he took care of her for Nathan and Moira. "Someone will have to bring Dr. Maddie waffles," Miles found himself saying, throat tightening fast. "Mama won't-" He stopped and curled up against Amanda, not finishing the sentence.
"We'll look after Dr. Maddie and Dr. Moira, and they'll look after your mother," Nathan said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "That's the way things work around here, Miles. When there's trouble, we look after each other."
Amanda tightened the hug she was already giving him, reassuring him with sheer presence. "Just for a little while," she murmured. "'Til Alison gets better. 'Cause she will get better. The docs here can fix anythin', an' that's somethin', from me."
A small nod though Miles didn't answer that - the look on his face said more clearly than anything that he knew some things couldn't be fixed, no matter how badly you wished they could be. "Miles is scared." He remembered only too well what it had been like in Asgard, being separated from Alison for so long and not knowing if he'd see her again. Amanda had promised that things would get better back then though, and she'd been right.
Nathan took a deep breath and then reached out, over Amanda - and let his hand rest on Miles' small shoulder. The agitated thoughts battering against his mental shields went quiet, and Nathan smiled very faintly at the surprised look he got from the little boy. "It's okay to be scared," he murmured. "We're here. Not going anywhere."
Resting her chin gently on Miles' head, Amanda started humming the lullaby again as she rubbed his back. 'Safe,' her whole demeanour projected at him. 'You're safe and we're not going anywhere.'
He was still tired and scared and it didn't take much for him to slip back into a light doze, stirring restlessly now and then in his sleep.
Nathan leaned back, his eyes stinging suddenly as he remembered what Alison had asked him and Moira a few weeks ago. He closed his eyes for a moment, running over a meditative pattern in his mind until all that was left was calm. When he opened them, Miles was already starting to relax against Amanda again. Nathan settled himself more comfortably in the chair. Here for the duration, he thought.
